


Cramps

by Cumbermarvel (UglyJackal)



Series: IronStrange Week May 14 - May 20 [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: IronStrange Week May 2018, M/M, Trans Male Character, trans!Stephen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 20:35:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14723154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UglyJackal/pseuds/Cumbermarvel
Summary: IronStrange Week Prompt 5: Hurting





	Cramps

**Author's Note:**

> whoops I projected onto Stephen

It wasn’t often that Tony woke up to an empty bed. Stephen was usually wrapped up in his arms, sleeping softly. But this morning, Stephen had wriggled himself out of bed.

Tony sat up and scanned the room blearily; Stephen’s cloak and robes were still hung up in the wardrobe - the Cloak seemed to be sleeping. So the Sorcerer hadn’t abandoned him in the middle of the night. So where was he? He started to panic that this was it; Stephen had finally given up, had gotten sick of him and had walked out on him, their relationship had come to a close.

And then a retching noise came from the bathroom, and Tony's stomach plummeted.

He rolled out of bed and approached the bathroom. His hand hovered over the door handle, listening before he knocked gently and called out, 'Stephen?', and then waited for an answer.

A groan answered him. 'Tony...' the answering call was quiet and broken, desperate for the arms of his boyfriend to circle around his shoulders.

Tony was in the bathroom in an instant. There, he saw Doctor Stephen Strange slumped next to the toilet with his head drooping over the bowl. There was a dribble of vomit making its way down the side of his mouth. When the door opened, his tired blue eyes, defrosted of their usual ice, looked up at his boyfriend, and he immediately tried to get up and go towards him. But then he stopped and groaned, hunching down with a hand on his stomach.

'I didn't even realise that it had been a month,' Tony said, coming to sit down next to the sorcerer, and putting on arm around the other's shoulders.

Stephen nuzzled into the crook of Tony's neck. 'Neither had I,' he mumbled, 'and I'm usually so vigilant about it, what happened?'

'There's been a lot of dimension-jumping, problems in the alternate universes,' the engineer said, 'you can't say that you haven't been distracted lately. Don't blame yourself.'

The sorcerer grumbled wordlessly and nuzzled harder into Tony's neck. 'I just want it to stop,' his voice shook and Tony felt damp on his skin where Stephen's head was resting, 'I just wish... I just wish I could have been born-'

'Hey, hey,' Tony interrupted, 'don't start to think like that. You are no less of a man that myself, Rhodey, or Bruce. If anything you are more a man than any man I've ever met. And you're my man,'

'Just wish that... that the dysphoria would let off a bit when my periods come,' the wizard said, 'I've had this for forty years, I should be used to it.'

'You can't be used to something that you're not meant to have,' his boyfriend said.

'I hate being trans.'

Tony flinched and looked at Stephen. 'No, you don't,' he said, 'you say this every month, every time your dysphoria gets too much, but you don't mean it. Being trans has made you one of the kindest and most accepting people I know; you are able to understand people in the most clinical way, you know how the brain works; you can bear all of the pain that you do because you bore it as a child, when people got upset because of who you are. You are the most wonderful man, and you always have been, ever since you were born.'

He was crying now, he hated it when Tony told him how wonderful he was, because he could never find it in himself to believe it. But he stilled appreciated it, because sometimes he needed someone to make a positive comment, just sometimes, about him, instead of the constant berating that he found himself hammered with on a daily basis. Whether it was about his gender identity, or his attitude, there was always something that people would pick on him for.

But Tony was right; he really didn't hate being transgender. Everything he was, his opinions, the sarcasm, the coldness towards strangers stemmed from some aspect of being trans. Whether it was to protect himself from the biting comments, or when he saw someone hurt and afraid without anyone else in the world to care about them, it was because he had faced the same thing. Perhaps that was why he had aspired to be a surgeon, because then he would be able to help someone, but he had let the fame get to his head; the praise and the adoration. Finally, _finally_ people saw him as a doctor, as a top neurosurgeon, not as some girl that had been brainwashed, not that kid who just hated themselves, not as someone who was mentally ill. But as an incredibly talented man. And it had paid off, he had finally been able to afford the top surgery that he had craved for so long, the perks of being a world-renowned surgeon had certainly paid off.

His thoughts were interrupted when a cramp took hold of his stomach and tried to strangle it, and he retched over the bowl of the toilet again. Nothing came up; he had coughed out the contents of his stomach earlier that morning. Tony rubbed his lower back, trying to ease the pain that his boyfriend was feeling.

'Come on,' he said, as he stood up, 'let's get you back in bed.'

Stephen didn't have the strength to protest, and followed Tony like a helpless puppy. His lay back in bed, and Tony switched on the fan so that he didn't get too hot, then left the room for a few minutes. He returned with a hot water bottle, a cup of soothing tea and a teddy bear. The teddy bear was something that Stephen's mother had given him, and he found that he would need it whenever he was feeling bad, which was definitely now.

Tony put the hot water bottle underneath the covers at Stephen's stomach and the teddy bear in the wizard's out-stretched hand. He set the cup of tea on the bedside cabinet, and Stephen shifted himself up to take a small sip.

Once he had laid back down, Tony scooted himself behind his boyfriend and hugged him. Stephen was grateful for the contact.


End file.
